Nearly all the prime white fish we catch (sea-bass, pollock and cod) will have been caught using traditional rod and line methods. During the summer months we also fish for mackerel, turbot, brill and black bream using lines too. Fishing this way is extremely sustainable towards fish stocks and it also enables us to return alive to the water any juvenile or unwanted fish.
During the winter months when the shoals of summer fish have migrated we turn our attention to catching Dover Soles and Plaice using traditional tangle nets. Unlike gill nets, tangle nets have a larger mesh which rather than capturing fish by their heads and gills which invariably ends up with the captured fish dying, the fish get tangled or wrapped up in the net. This enables the fish to keep alive for longer and also, because of the larger mesh size (normally 5 inches stretched), enables small fish to swim through the net unscathed.
Other than using a small ‘sand eel’ trawl net which we trawl over a small gravel/shingle bank for catching bait, we don’t use any other trawl gear. Fishing with lines doesn’t cause any lasting damage to the environment, unlike the damage caused by modern day trawlers. Fishing this way prevents all the killing and discarding of unwanted fish, over-quota species and the unnecessary killing of marine life, endangered corals, seabirds and mammals including dolphins. With all the bad press the fishing industry has recently received there has never been a better time to source local, sustainable line-caught fish.
